What was J.R.R. Tolkien’s first academic position at the University of Leeds?

J.R.R. Tolkien’s first academic position at the University of Leeds was Reader in English Language.

After serving as a lexicographer on the Oxford English Dictionary, Tolkien joined the University of Leeds in 1920 as a reader in English language. He later became Professor of English Language at Leeds. During this period, he worked with E. V. Gordon on the influential edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, published in 1925.

Tolkien left Leeds for Oxford in 1925, taking the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College. This career path is easy to confuse because his Oxford titles are better known. His Leeds work nevertheless formed an important part of his scholarly development before the publication of The Hobbit.